An Interview With Frankenstein

Do you have any idea how hard it is to get Frankenstein’s e-mail address? I thought it would be nice to talk to him, what with Halloween and all coming up.

I addressed him as Mr. Frankenstein, and he said he had updated his name, and preferred Frank.

He was somewhat depressed. He had read about the New Jersey school that wouldn’t let the kids have Halloween. He said things have really gone downhill in the last 200 years, mostly in the last 20 years.

I asked him how his health was overall, and he said he couldn’t complain, the normal aches and pains.

He said he was still having trouble with the city council. I told him I thought he had been having trouble with the city council forever, and he said it seemed that way.

He said the problem now was the zoning restrictions they instituted, and one of them seemingly directed right at him. His lightning rod was too tall. He said for as long as he could remember, it had been 100 feet tall, and now they wanted him to shorten it to 50 feet. They finally compromised at 75 feet, but Frank said with all the high mountains around him, he just wasn’t getting the lightning bolts he used to get. He mentioned something about a phone cell tower being close by that was providing competition for his lightning rod.

He said he had modernized, and now had a lightning bolt storage unit, and when he needed a charge, all he had to do was to connect up to the storage unit, and in about five minutes he was good as new. Now he said his storage unit was so often low on lightning bolts, he had to hook up the electrodes in his neck with one end of the electrical cord, and the other he plugged in to an outlet for electric cars. He said that was terribly inefficient, because he had to stay plugged up all night to even feel like getting up in the morning.

He said he was also depressed about losing all his friends—Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi, Vincent Price, Christopher Lee, and Dracula. He said there were rumors floating around about exactly what happened to Dracula, but he knew the truth. Dracula had been to an all-night party, and forgot he was on daylight savings time, and the sun came up, and well, you know how that went.

He said he’d hired a new agent, because the sale of his merchandise had just about dried up, nobody knew who he was anymore. He said his new agent said things would pick up. His agent suggested the first thing was that Frank should start conducting tours of his castle. Frank told his agent he didn’t think the people would have any interest in touring his castle, and his agent told him the tourists and Frank would be surprised.

Frank said his agent asked him if he was on Facebook, and Frank asked him what Facebook was. Frank’s agent told him to get an updated picture, and join Facebook. Frank said he told him the last time he went down into the village to have a picture made the photographer unexpectedly left town.

Then his agent told Frank he should come up with a profile for Facebook. Frank told him he didn’t know anything he had done in the last 200 years that people would be interested in. Frank told him he didn’t write any of this stuff down, and he’d have to sit down and think about it.

Frank said his agent also mentioned Twitter and tweeting and Instagram, and Frank told him he thought for now he’d just stick with Facebook.

Frank told his agent he didn’t travel that much anymore, in fact he didn’t have a very good mode of transportation. He said the only car he had was a 1937 Cord somebody had left at his front door when they knocked on his door, and Frank went to the door and told them the person they were looking for lived next door.

Frank said it was awfully hard to get parts for a 1937 Cord, and besides his driver’s license had expired in 1834, and it was only good for driving a horse and buggy.

I asked Frank how his memory was, and he said not as good as it used to be, he said he could remember the last 150 years fairly easily, but the fifty years before that were a complete blank. I told him he’d had some wild times in his youth, and it might be best to skip the first 50 years of his life.

Frank said he’d been to see a psychologist. Well Frank said that wasn’t totally correct. He and the psychologist had e-mailed back and forth, and he only told the psychologist he was Frank. He always tried to tell the psychologist in third person terms the things he had done over the years, but sometimes he slipped up and said it was him who had done the things. The psychologist said he realized that Frank, himself, had not done those things, and that he thought Frank had a sense of humor for acting like he did. He did ask Frank to send him a picture. Frank said he sent the picture, and never heard from the psychologist again.

Expect to see and hear more from Frank. His agent is arranging a world tour.